The Horcrux Children
by Smoochynose
Summary: Two souls are tainted. A new path is formed in darkness. HarryXGinny
1. 1 to 25

**The Horcrux Children**

1.

Ginerva Weasley first meets Harry Potter at platform nine and three quarters. She doesn't know he is then and in her excitement trips over him. Or at least that's what her mother thought. Molly Weasley didn't see the way he casually changed his path to move in front of her, or the way Ginny pretends not to notice as she deliberately catches her foot on his. He lifts her to her feet like a real prince, says a few carefully selected words, and becomes her first crush as a small smirk plays on his face at their game of subtlety. That night she dreams of dark green eyes.

2.

Harry deliberately finds an empty compartment on the train. He knows he's famous but not how much, so it's a game of sorts. He wants to test the character of the people who seek him out. He wants to know who's ambitious, who's curious, and who's just plain attention seeking. He finds them in Draco Malfoy, Hermione Granger, and Ron Weasley.

3.

Ginny can remember the fight her father got in when she was five. It had been one of her first times out in Diagon Alley and a sharp faced blond man had made a remark about her. There was spell light and physical blows. She cowered under a table and wished for it to end. And, when it finally did, and her father and the blond man were taken away for disrupting the peace, whilst she was lead away by a female auror to wait for her mother to get her, she leant down and picked up the diary she found in the middle of the dusty road.

4.

When Harry Potter arrives at Hogwarts he is not what people were expecting. He is elegant, refined, and charming and not Gryffindor in the least. The small smirk on his face when the hat calls out 'Slytherin' is enough to prove that he belongs there.

5.

Ginny knows that Tom Riddle was not her friend. She knows if she had been older, had she been stronger than he would have drained her strength, her soul and used it as his own whilst she lay dead as a hollow shell. But she wasn't older and Tom knew that the diary would be noticed eventually. So as she told him her secrets he slowly integrated his soul fragment into her own. Until one day at dinner she realises she hates her father for his love of muggles.

6.

Harry sits through the welcoming feast exchanging polite conversation with his new housemates. His word's stroke Draco's ego, allay to rest Daphne's well hidden fears, and silently enters an agreement of later exchange of knowledge with Theodore. And all the while Harry wonders what to do about Voldemort possessing his DADA teacher.

7.

Ginny reads about Harry in her brother's letters. She reads how he moves through the houses like he belongs to each one of them. She reads how he diffuses situations between the warring Slytherins and Gryffindors with easy grace, pleasing both sides and gaining as well. She reads how he already has a large group in the year that listen to what he has to say. Then she reads between the lines and sees he has no real friends.

8.

It's late at night when Harry absently recalls the first time he realised his soul was not fully his own. He'd had his suspicions a while but it was when the guest speaker in his filthy primary school brought in a snake and he understood what it was saying that he recalled moments of another life for the first time whilst still awake. And as he sat watching the creature, he smirked like he had a lifetime before.

9.

Ginny grows to hate her family. She hates the way the belittle her as the only girl. She hates the way they don't see her brilliance. But most of all she hates the way part of her tainted soul rebels and loves them anyway.

10.

Harry hates the way Dumbledore watches him. A small part of him remembers how much he hated it years before. He's more careful this time though. He plays the game better than he did before. He befriends Hermione Granger and thinks what a useful tool she is. A shield from suspicious eyes. A mudblood and a Gryffindor. It's easy to hide his distain for her, especially when she isn't searching for it. He's kind, she's desperate, and they're intellectual peers. How easy people are to fool.

11.

Ginny likes to wear masks. It's a game to her. People are easy to fool. She fools her father into believing her brothers have hurt her and watches maliciously as he punishes them. She fools her brothers into believing it was a misunderstanding and laughs to herself as they run themselves ragged trying to please her as she cries. She fools her mother into spending more money on her than her siblings and smirks as she runs her hands through the fine material of her new dress. But then she goes to play with the Lovegood girl and fumes in anger as she sees past her masks like they're not even there.

12.

Harry learns of the philosophers' stone in the first few months of school. He knows it's guarded but seeks little to obtain it. Dumbledore still watches and whilst immortality and wealth is much to desire, anonymity is much more important at this stage. Besides he's still working on it in a way.

13.

One day Ginny's mum takes her with her when she does to visit a distant squib cousin. They leave her alone at the park with muggle children her own age as they talk together on a bench over coffee. Ten minutes later they have to go home after an incident where a snake bit one of the other children. 'It's a shame,' her mother comments. Ginny thinks not.

14.

Harry sits in the corner of the Slytherin common room and observes. He does it slyly, reading an obscure book of runes he found in the library. And in a dark brown journal makes notes, theorises, and improves on what he reads. Whilst he does that he watches, catalogues, and learns the best way to manipulate each of his housemates. A smile for that witch, a challenge for the boy at the fireplace, and lonely mask seeking company for the abused second year.

15.

Ginny goes to Romania for Christmas. She sees Charlie again for the first time in a year. He teaches her about all the dragon types. He tells her their strengths and weaknesses. Ginny already knows them though. She wonders what Charlie would say if he knew that part of her tainted soul once spent long hours in a library factoring in how dragons could work in its favour.

16.

Harry looks the invisibility cloak over and marvels at its quality. It's probably the finest piece of workmanship he's ever seen. He'd go as far to say infallible. He can't help the small laugh to himself as he realises what Dumbledore has handed him.

17.

Ginny dreams of her coming days at Hogwarts. And each time she does she dreams of verdant eyes. She worries it's obsession, the way she scours for information about the boy in her brother's scarce letters. And she finds herself impressed when she learns from Charlie about the way he helped Hagrid the groundskeeper with a dragon problem. And yet she couldn't care less that he's helping people. She's impressed by the way he's gained allies in them.

18.

Harry marvels at how well he's integrated himself into all four houses. Most don't even seem to care he's not one of their own, whilst some of the older Slytherins wonder at how The-Boy-Who-Lived is more one of them than they themselves are. Snape just regards the boy with solemn contempt and thinks how he's very little like either of his parents.

19.

Ginny is going through her old things when she stumbles across the empty husk of a diary she once treasured. It's useless and empty. The soul it contained is now hers. But still, she gently brushes the dust off it, and places it in the old battered trunk her mother brought down from the attic ready for school.

20.

Harry watches himself or rather part of what he once was. He knows that Voldemort is beneath the turban. He is the man's most loyal ally. How could he not be when part of his soul belongs to him. However he knows not to approach. It's too soon and Dumbledore is too close. So watches and he plans and he fumes when he sees himself flee at the end of the year without the stone. He is so weak now and Dumbledore has foiled him again.

21.

It's late at night when Ginny feels the anger vibrate down her soul. Part of her is relieved to know that the part of herself that is Voldemort is still out there and several plans form in her mind on how to rejoin him. However part of her wonders at the anger and how it comes from the same yet different source.

22.

The end of the school year comes quickly. Harry has the best marks in the year and Hermione seeks to learn where she went wrong from him. He listens and puts up with the girl in close quarters for all of the train ride home. However, when they come to part, he wonders why he regrets the joy in her eyes when he introduces him to her muggle parents as her 'best friend'.

23.

Ginny meets Harry again briefly in Flourish and Blotts about a month before the school year. She watches as he skilfully avoids the pathetic attentions of an even more pathetic author. And makes small talk with him over the usefulness of a borderline dark book he was perusing. And as their talk progresses they each pull more of their masks into play, watching knowingly as the other does the same. They each try to out act the other in wits and masks. Finally Ginny issues the challenge of fooling the author. It's a simple task, the real challenge is catching it in her delicate words in the first place. The smirk is enough to know he heard loud and clear.

24.

Harry smirks as he watches Ginerva leave the bookstore. In her cauldron she has not only Lockheart's complete collection but all of the schoolbooks on her list and then some completely free of charge and courtesy of the author. She turns to him, her smirk mirroring his. Her brown eyes sparkle. 'You won this time,' they say. And somehow he relishes the promise of more games of wit.

25.

Ginny smiles to herself as she lays the last neatly folded dress down. It rests on top of all her school things. Everything was ready for Hogwarts. She was finally going home.


	2. 26 to 50

**The Horcrux Children**

26. Harry lounges lazily across the Dursley's white sofa, his dirty trainers deliberately on the arm, and an old dusty tomb that is clearly not "normal" resting against his chest. He drags a finger along the pale leather of the book and muses aloud, 'What strange material to use … human skin.' He's rewarded by the squeal of his pathetic cousin. Shame he couldn't do more than that … yet.

27. Ginny can remember a time when she was younger. Her father had taken all her brothers out, save for the twins who were grounded. She wasn't allowed to go as it was a boys day out, though she'd wanted to. Her mother was too busy to give her any attention and the twins weren't allowed to play. But as she sat alone she could hear them laughing and joking as they worked through their chores. They were Fred and George. Together forever. Always and always. And she was always the one left behind. It was two weeks after that incident she found solace in a diary.

28. Harry flicks through the letters he receives with great boredom and holds back a sneer when he realises that Hermione has written to him. He does write back though, sounding all wide eyed and wondrous at the tales she tells of her holidays. She still had her uses. He could play nice. He could play anything,

29. Ginny grits her teeth and plays the young girl as her mother holds her close, gushing out her worries after the mornings news of the village reached The Burrow. She'd been grabbed into a panicked hug the moment she returned from the shop. 'You're not to step a foot outside the wards, you hear me? And to think that you were just down the road from where it happened. Such horrendous things muggles can do to each other. Thank Merlin it's only a few days until Hogwarts. A murderer on the loose...'

30. Harry finds the Dursleys are only too happy to oblige when he demands to go to the station early. Since he's there early it gives him a chance to change before anyone sees him in the crude muggle clothes. He doesn't care that they're brand new and designer. They were still muggle. Still filthy. Clad in wizards robes he settles into an empty compartment, intent on finding out who'd seek him out that year.

31. Ginny was all too pleased to leave her parents when she reached the platform. She did however let a few tears out for appearances sake. Then she calls eagerly on the role of nervous first year and knocks on the door of the compartment she sought out.

32. Harry smiles slightly when he sees the redhead from the shop enter the compartment looking suitably shy and nervous. 'Excuse me. Is it okay to sit here? All the other compartments are taken you see. Harry smiles at the blatant lie they both know it to be. The games begin.

33. Ginny enjoyed conversing with Harry. It had been a long time since she could talk to someone about something that was intellectually stimulating and not quidditch related. It was nice to play with words and see if the other would catch onto the true meaning, all the while second guessing the meanings behind the others words. With Ron she had found she had to give and take everything at face value.

34. After a while Harry grew restless and decided to visit some associates from other houses, inviting Ginny along. 'No thank you,' she replied, pulling a very familiar black diary from her bag. 'I think I'll just sit and write for a bit.' Harry nodded. And, as he left without a word about the diary, he couldn't help but feel it was a shame that her life force would soon be drained.

35. Ginny dipped her quill in ink and wrote with perfect script into Tom Riddle's diary for the first time in years. A vicious smirk appeared on her lips as she watched the ink sink into the paper and a new message appear.

36. Harry remembers a time as he passes through the carriage when his current soul was in two pieces, when one part wasn't his and the other was fully his own. He can remember his uncle's meaty fist ploughing into him and the dark whispers in the corner of his mind telling him what to do. Harry smiles in satisfaction as he remembers his uncle's screams.

37. Ginny walks calmly up to the Sorting Hat. She's done it before and she can do it again. And this time she actually has a pureblood name to make use of, no matter how much her family may have sullied it. And it's with little surprise that she's sorted into Slytherin. At least to her anyway.

38. Harry silently laughs at the shock on the faces of Ginny's brothers. He wonders how they never saw the Slytherin qualities in her before. His housemates seem uncertain of how to react as she approaches them, leaving Harry to be the one to scoot over on the bench to make room for her. The rest followed his lead and began to welcome her.

39. The day after the sorting, Ginny stands still as her brother shouts at her, calling her names such as 'scum of the earth' and other such things for being in Slytherin. Then the twins pull Ron away and call him an idiot and sing Ginny praises, informing her how useful she will be to their pranks by joining Slytherin. They give her a brief hug each before scurrying off to their first lesson. Fred walks away under a mild compulsion charm and a black diary in the folds of his robes. Ginny smiles in a cold-hearted way.

40. Harry finds Ginny the best company he's had in years. She catches onto things almost as quickly as he does. They weave their words in ways that subtly hint at their true feelings of muggles and muggleborn.

41. Ginny watches Harry repress his anger when Snape unfairly docks him points in the corridors as they walk by, insulting her friend's heritage. And as Snape turns away, she can't help but think that for a moment in the light, Harry's eyes looked red. And that's something she's come to link with the reflection of her own tainted soul in moments of anger. She looks at him and begins to suspect.

42. Harry spends an hour in the library with some first year Ravenclaws. He plays the helpful mentor and begins to work on binding their loyalties to him. Only at the end does the peculiar blonde star him in the face. 'You're like her,' she says and vanishes round the corner before Harry can ask what that means.

43. Ginny watches her brothers carefully. After a few weeks of school she begins to see the confused and worried glances that George casts at Fred when he thinks his twin isn't watching. The latter is already showing a few signs of the diary's work. His skin has a slightly pale tone and his patience begins to thin. So much so that a month into the school year, he snaps at George for the first time in their life. George comes to her the next day for advice. His eyes tormented.

44. When Hagrid mentions in passing that someone's been killing the roosters, Harry's eyes narrow, He hasn't seen Ginny write in the diary since the train and she certainly hasn't been showing signs of having her life energy drained. And yet somewhere, someone is being possessed by the Horcrux. He found himself oddly pleased that Ginny had somehow passed the diary on.

45. Ginny smiled and sank back against the wall. She let the familiar tones of the basilisk wash over her as it travelled through the pipes.

46. Harry sits back and watches the panic unfold on Halloween, as Ronald Weasley and his mates her blamed by Filch for the petrifaction of the mangy cat. He watches Ginny talk in her brother's defence, "accidentally" letting slip knowledge that incriminates him further. Harry almost purrs in contentment when Dumbledore leads Ron away.

47. Ginny watches in disgust as Crabbe and Goyle practically fall over themselves trying to get Malfoy to tell them about the heir of Slytherin, making it all to clear they think that it'd him. She leans in slightly, curious as to whether he will falsely claim the title for attention. She's satisfied when he answers on the negative. She sees the very same satisfaction in Harry's eyes. Not for the first time, she feels suspicious.

48. Harry spends more time with Hermione, as soon as Dumbledore's suspicious eyes turn to him after Halloween and is glad that he has a good, strong alibi. He's much to similar to Tom for Dumbledore not to have his doubts. Once more he uses the muggleborn as a shield.

49. Ginny feels like laughing at the pathetic excuse of a duelling club that Lockheart puts on and is impressed when Draco manages to summon a snake. Tom had been able to do the same by that age too but it was impressive nonetheless. The glee shines in her eyes when due to Lockheart's mistake the snake sinks its fangs into a second year student.

50. Harry watches Ginny closely. He watches her watch Fred and George as their relationship begins to strain even more and he finds himself watching as Fred degrades even more under the diary's influence. However it's Ginny that intrigues him, the knowing in her eyes and her willingness to let it continue.


	3. 51 to 75

**The Horcrux Children**

51. Ginny glares at the letter in her hands so hard that she's mildly surprised that it doesn't burn to ashes like a similar letter had in another life. She wishes she could reply her true feelings to the letter. She wishes she could inform her mother how she has no desire to return home for Christmas because she is already there. But she can't. She has a part to play in a greater game than one of family issues. A game in which the world is the prize.

52. Harry decides that Christmas is boring. Oh there's the insights in how well his schemes are coming, the progress he's made in the gifts he receives (and he is pleased with the greater number and higher quality from significant players) but he finds without Ginny the company is rather dull. However he does smile as he opens the last gift. A silver ouroboros with green gemstones for eyes. Perhaps the greatest progress he's made is with her.

53. Ginny watches as the attacks peak in frequency over the next few months, frustrated as each victim narrowly avoids death through a string of unlikely circumstances. Then in mid march she's collected by Severus well after curfew and taken to the hospital wing. She's greeted by the sight of the twins. One silently crying, cradling the other in his arms.

54. Harry arrives at breakfast and what happened George Weasley is already big news. It makes the other purebloods nervous, as they realise for the first time that it is possible for them to be attacked as well. But Harry's more nervous than anyone. He knows the diary. He knows Riddle as well as he knows himself. Riddle would not have attacked George Weasley. There's another factor at play he does not know about. Harry doesn't like it. Not one bit.

55. Ginny watches Fred closely in the following month. If anything could break the diary's hold it would be knowing he was in some way responsible for what happened to George. At first he seems to struggle against it, not quite strong enough to inform anyone of its control over him or strong enough to get rid of it, however he is strong enough to resist the compulsion to write in it, to let it possess him. At least for the first few weeks anyway. Then it regains its hold and Ginny can relax.

56. Harry smiles smugly when Dumbledore is forced from his post. It's the happiest he's ever felt. This time Hogwarts has rejected Dumbledore. This time it's Harry who gets to stay. Then there's the bone deep satisfaction in knowing the greatest of his enemies has vacated the school.

57. Ginny is wandering the halls at night when she sees the message painted on the wall. She knows instantly where and why the Horcrux has taken Fred. Tonight her brother will die. Of course she knows. She had already planned it. Her traitorous heart beats fast.

58. Harry is the last one in the common room when Ginny returns from her late night walk. She turns to him and it's the look in her eyes that tell him her next few words will change his life.

59. Ginny's throat burns. 'Please. Help me save him.'

60. Harry forms a plan quickly and Ginny agrees. They sneak past the teachers in the hallway until they reach Lockheart's rooms. Harry steadies his breath as the door creaks open. _'Imperio.'_

61. Ginny wants to know why Harry is helping her. She wants to know why he can cast an Unforgivable so easily. She wants to know how he knew that Fred was truly innocent, how he was possessed. She already is certain in what she believes to be the reason. But she wants him to say it. She wants to know not think.

62. Harry has questions he wants to ask. How and why did the diary relinquish its hold on her? Why did Riddle try and attack George so finally when the Riddle Harry knew would have aided his plans more by casting spells instead? And why was Ginny only now trying to help her brother when she's known all year what will happen?

63. Ginny and Harry subconsciously take turns in leading the way to the chamber, proving that they both knew where it was all along. It is that, along with her prior suspicions and her need to know, that give her all she needs to say her next words. 'You're like me.'

64. Harry contemplates her words, splitting his attentions on the deeper meanings of them (the way they echo the blonde's in the library so many months before) and maintaining the Imperio. It comes to him easily. He sees so much of him in her but it's not himself he sees in her, not really. 'You're a part of him. You have some of his soul,' he stated. 'From the diary I presume.'

65. Ginny nods. 'Yes.'

66. Harry's voice turns cold as the implications of that begin to sink in. 'Then why is it still working?'

67. Ginny opens her mouth to answer but Harry knows already. His face turns into deadly fury. 'You made another Horcrux," he snarls, 'You stupid, foolish girl.'

68. Harry watches the horror at the mistake in her plan dawn on Ginny's face as he explains there were already five Horcruxes when he was made. Their (His) soul was already in seven pieces. It was already strong as it could be, when she made an eighth! He can't appreciate the sickness that appears on her face. She had weakened them.

69. Ginny spots her brother the moment they enter the chamber. He lies pale, deathlike on the floor whilst a spirit that is a strange combination of herself and riddle towers over him. For a moment she thinks she actually succeeded in killing her brother. For a moment she feels remorse.

70. Harry screams, losing control of the Imperio as pain, pain like none he can remember in both lives he has lived, echoes along the pieces of Voldemort's soul. It feels like dying. It's only when he sees the Horcrux shade get reabsorbed by Ginny he realises what has happened and by that point Lockheart is attacking.

71. Ginny burns. It's the closest description to the equivalent of what is happening to her soul. She tore it apart and because of a misplaced emotion, she started the process of burning the pieces back together. Through the burning she is only vaguely aware of Harry disarming Lockheart and calling the basilisk.

72. Harry recasts the Imperio and waits until Fred has woken to carry out the plan that had originally been intended. He shoves the boy back down, telling Fred not to open his eyes and that Lockheart is fighting the basilisk. They listen, Harry silently controlling the professor, until he shouts it's safe to open their eyes. Harry and Fred are greeted by Lockheart standing over the basilisk, triumphant in his last moments before the basilisk poison sets in.

73. Ginny is helped to her feet by Fred, listening as Harry explains to him how they saw the message and got Lockheart, who proclaimed he knew the entrance. And Ginny, worried about him, had foolishly followed. The tale went on, as both Harry and Ginny falsely showed shock and cried over the man's death.

74. Harry would have felt more anger at Dumbledore's return had it not been for the fact that the world was fooled into believing that Lockheart was a true hero and not incompetent as people had begun to believe, while Harry and Ginny had become some sort of sidekicks and heroes to be themselves. Not only that but Dumbledore himself seems to find no falsity in their tale. He truly thinks they were on the path of "light".

75. Ginny says goodbye at the platform to Harry, as they promise to exchange letters over the holidays. It's only over the last week that she's come to learn that they're not the same after all. She processes a portion of Tom Riddle's soul but Harry processes a portion of Voldemort's. Her soul is young. The taint not as deep. She has not yet completely crossed that final line. Because even though she hates her family, she still cares about them. On the other hand. Harry cares about no one. She wonders how she never saw it before.


End file.
